online retail

From twenty years of trying, I know this about covering Amazon: It’s tricky. Our report process can take months during which we comb through our extensive Technographics data to find patterns or we interview executives. Not to mention the time it…

Good news for luxury brands – Luxury will see continued growth for online sales and for in-store sales that are influenced by digital touchpoints, per Forrester’s newly updated Global Luxury Retail Sales Forecast 2017 to 2022. So that’s great – but, as…

Last week’s NRF Big Show at the Javits Center in New York City is the industry’s largest confab and its timing (as most retail fiscal years close) makes it a good prognosticator of which retail technologies companies will be investing in (or at least i…

Across industries, improvement in CX leads to growth in total revenue. Facing stiff competition on- and off-line, retailers need to invest in superior CX to differentiate themselves and foster the loyalty of empowered customers. However, consumers tell…

In a world of hyper-adoption – and hyper-abandonment – successful retailing in 2018 comes down to obsessing about your customer’s experience. It’s a tall order: Digital and physical touchpoints now must work together flawlessly – yet also do what each …

As Yogi Berra said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Office Depot announced the $1 billion acquisition of CompuCom yesterday, which is a strong pivot into IT services for the 31-year-old retailer. The deal adds 11,500 employees — including 6,000 licensed technicians — and a database of millions of end clients to Office Depot’s 1,400 […]

Luxury consumers around the world are embracing new technology and adding these digital touchpoints – including, of course, their smartphones – into their shopping behaviors. But overall, luxury brands have been far too slow to respond to their customers’ rising digital expectations. Luxury brands, tier one through to aspirational, are now scrambling to bolster their […]

As will be no surprise to advertising industry watchers, the duopoly of Google and Facebook once again demonstrated its dominance of the ad market following the release of their Q2 2017 earnings results. According to Forrester’s just launched Digital Marketing Tracker report, Google and Facebook accounted for 74% of both ad revenue and growth among […]

On October 6, 2014, Flipkart launched Big Billion Day, an event that occurs within India’s festive season — a holiday period that accounts for 40% of the total sales of key brands in India. Now in its fourth year, Big Billion Day has expanded from a one-day event to five days. In 2014, Snapdeal launched […]

Walmart and Google have announced an important new partnership that directly addresses the growing markets for voice-assisted shopping and free expedited delivery. Marc Lore, President and CEO, Walmart U.S. eCommerce, wrote on Walmart’s blog, “Starting in late September, we’ll be working with Google to offer hundreds of thousands of items for voice shopping via Google […]

Vantiv has the largest payments industry acquisition of 2017 ($10.4B) under its belt — now what? Integration is the trickiest part of any acquisition and comes after the dust settles and the deal is done. This crucial phase begins in earnest this week for Vantiv and Worldpay. To accelerate its business and achieve the full […]

Digital retail theater is becoming reality for consumers as retailers rush to find ways of attracting and retaining store customers. What is digital retail theater? It’s the combination of original retail theater – entertainment, novelty, and engagement – with digital technologies and services to create the next level of in-store experience. My colleague, Brendan Miller […]